The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1887-03-04

wealth on one side, deep poverty on tht
other, and some men say ooh, the trouble
is in the achievements of capital, or in thi:
monopoly, that monopoly or the other mo
nopoly.' The fundamental trouble is in
the ownership of land, and if you go to the
state of society where there is no capital
where no machinery is used, where there
are no railroads and no transportation
monopolies, but where the land is the prop.
erty Of one class, you will see precisely
those phenomena. Applause. Go into
western Ireland, or into northwestern Scot
| land, and you may yet see society in its
| most primitive form-people working with
| implements that their ancestors worked
with two thousand years ago; and you will
find DO wage system there; you will find
no capitalists there; but you will find alb
jeet poverty, people working hard and
getting the poorest return. Why? Be
cause all they can make, save bare liv-
ing, is taken by the landlord; [applause] J.,
| in return for what d? In return for permits
sion to them to live on this earth. laugh
ter and applause You will see the work
ing people laboring hard the men going
out and Drawing the dangers of the seas; or
in the summer time going oyer to England
and the lowlands of Scotland to engage in
agricultural work, and the women toiling
like pack horses with great creels Of peat
| and manure on their back, living in the
poorest novels; but every now and again
you will see a magnificent mansion, owned
by man who never did a stroke of work
in his life, [laughterl, man who makes it
his boast that neither he ever worked nor
his ancestors for long generations loud
laughter; yet he lives in luxury, he comes
there and spends a month or two in the
summer time, and for the other part of the
year lives in idenoss and in luxury in Lon
don or in Paris.
That is the result Of making the land on
which and from which men must live, the
property of but one OF their number. And
the same thing yon may see right here in
these United States of America, A voice,
Eyes, sir Net SO clearly, because here
the system is more complex, but just as
truly. The ground on which this building
stands in which we are tonight, am told,
has advanced in value three times, three
years-some short time at any rate. What
does this mean? What does it mean to
the owner of piece Of land in this city of
Philadelphia? 1t means this: that he can
get more-for what? Why for being the
owner. lie can draw more rent; as we say,
get more money. That is to say he can
live in finer house, he can have more of
finer qualities of food. can have a carriage,
perhaps he can go on trip to Europe,
can have fine paintings, can have fine fur
niture. How do those things eome,--bet-
ter houses and carriages. and paintings,
and furniture and foods They cannot be
produced without work. Somebody has
worked to bring them into being, Zap
plausel, and when one man can get hold
Of them W itllont doing any more work. the
men who do work to produce them must
necessarily get less.
There is the heart to the labor question.
Why, in these American cities Of ours, in
this city of Philadelphia, you have held
great meetings and denounced Irish land
Iordsm. 1t is three Thousand miles off
and SO you denounce it, 0auglter), but if
YOU want to see Irish landlortlism,
or landlordism just as bad as Irish
landlordsm ever was, aye, and worse,
90 right up here in this state of Pennsyl-
vania [applause], go into your Schuylkill
coal fields. What will you find there?
Great deposits of coal placed there by the
slow processes of nature icons and eons
before man came upon the earth. The sun
light streaming down from heaven, arrest
ed, stored up by vegetation. placed in the
light and heat and power to coming gener-
ations of men. who in the creative in
tent We're at some time to be brought into
being on this earth. The men are here.
however claim that il is their coal. laugh
ter and applausel, and the laws of the
commonwealth of Pennsylvania say that
it Is their coal, and no other Pennsylva-
Man dare touch it, dare get a bucketiul of
this coal our of the earth save by their
permission. Laughter and applause ]. You
will find up there great estates, six, eight
and ten thousand acres, owned by one man
or by one company. And who are the rest
Of the people that live upon it? Merely
tenants at will, who to live there at all are
obliged to sign what they call s'cut-
throat lease 30 that they can be turned
out of house and home at five days notice;
men Who are obliged TO buy at the com
panys store, men whose only possibility of
at all standing up against the owner of
that part of the planet laughterl, is to
form labor organizations and to strike.
Suppose those coal miners We're free so
that they could be got at by men who
wanted to mine coal, not held ant, shut up
by dogs-in-t manger, who will only
mine little part Of II and keep all the rest
idle, would you have any scarcity of en-
ployment in the coal regions? or would
combinations that corner the market be
possible? A voice-''No, nor' No; so
it is in everything else Open to labor the
primary means of employment and labor
can employ itself [applause] and that is
all that is needed You workingmen here
in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania have